Page 15 - Art of the Ming and Qing Dynasty by Johnathan Hay

In court paintings of the "flower and bird" genre, one can also distinguish two

separate styles, though one would hesitate to link them directly to what is seen in ceramics.
Lin Liang (ca. 1416-80) first made a mark at the capital in the mid-1450s with his paintings
of birds in ink alone, which suitably contrasted with the luxury of Bian Wenjin's ink and
color style, more apt to the great days of Xuande. During the Chenghua reign, however, his
work remained popular as a counterpart in the genre of bird paintings to Wu Wei's figure

paintings and landscapes (493). In huge hanging scrolls he painted proud eagles as emblems
of the imperial might invested in generals; and in handscrolls a profusion of species, one after
another, flitting and squawking, in a metaphoric representation of the renewed prosperity of

the Chenghua reign. Lin's younger contemporary, Lü Ji (died ca.1505) thoroughly mastered
the Cantonese painter's style, but made his own mark through a reworking of the earlier style
of Bian Wenjin. Lü Ji's compositions far surpass Bian's in variety, complexity and
monumentality; the foreground space is deepened, with suggestions of further recession in a
flight of birds, a winding stream, or a bank of mist (494-95). Within the limits of a more

considered style, moreover, Lü Ji's paintings maintain the dynamism that Lin Liang had
introduced into the genre. It is understandable, therefore, that they displaced the older
master's style at court during the Hongzhi reign.

JIAJING TO EARLY WANLI (1521-1590)

By the middle years of the sixteenth century, China's material culture was beginning
to look very different from that of the first half of the Ming. In part it was simply more

elaborate and less functional, the natural result of an explosion of economic growth from the
1520s onwards. But values had also shifted in line with a few decisive sociological changes.
Following in Zhengde's footsteps, the Jiajing and Wanli emperors defined their cultural

responsibility narrowly in terms of their own living environment. Court art came to reflect
their personal beliefs and needs, and largely abandoned its national ambition. The hereditary
Ming aristocracy, meanwhile, had grown so large that in 1562 their stipulated state support
was formally suspended, after earlier being sharply curtailed. The crisis that they faced may
help to explain the end of their activity as major artistic patrons in Nanjing. Conversely, the

increasingly trans-regional character of commerce brought to the fore two regional groups:
the merchants and bankers of Shanxi in the north, and the merchants of the Huizhou area of
southern Anhui in the south. This latter regional group would retain its leading role in

southern China until the end of the eighteenth century. The Huizhou merchants initially
adopted the already commercialized literati culture of Suzhou as their own, giving expanded
significance to what had previously been a local phenomenon. In a parallel development,